Influence of ELNET on European Politics

Meet ELNET, Europe's most influential Israel lobby

group.

ELNET, which stands for European Leadership

Network, presents itself as an

NGO promoting shared democratic values between Europe and Israel,

but a closer look reveals an entirely different agenda.

Founded in 2007 with offices across Europe and England,

ELNET's purpose is to align European MPs with pro-Israel narratives

and to ensure that Tel Aviv's interests get a direct line into

European decision-making. The man behind it, Ranan

Gissin, who first dealt with European affairs at

AIPAC and

later at the Israeli National Security Council.

His words in 2008 were clear, "If groups like ours

had even 10% of the budget of US pro-Israel

lobbies, we could change European policies."

And that's

exactly what ELNET has been trying to do.

But how is ELNET influencing European and British politicians?

Simple, direct engagement. ELNET cultivates personal

ties with key figures and individual lawmakers.

As a core tactic, it sends lawmakers on luxury

all-expenses-paid trips to Israel, framing them as

educational experiences. In the first seven months after Tel Aviv

launched its genocidal war on Palestine's Gaza on October 7th,

2023, ELNET arranged over 20 trips, sending

nearly 300 parliamentarians from both the EU and the

UK to Israel. But these trips aren't just for show.

They're designed to get MPs on board with Israel's narratives

and to push Tel Aviv's agenda into related policies.

Among the many attendees were UK politicians Andrew Percy and

Anthony Higginbotham, who declared that the trips were donations.

Numerous UK Labor Party members also received money from ELNET amid

Israel's ongoing war on Gaza. A 2024 report by

Declassified UK revealed that nine conservative

MPs received funds from pro-Israel groups, including ELNET,

and key figures like John Woodcock, the Baron of Walney,

joined ELNET's online briefings about Tel Aviv's atrocities in the

Palestinian enclave. ELNET's lobbying led to increased support

among

EU politicians for Israeli policies that had previously come under heavy

criticism from some EU member states and neutralized

opposition to Tel Aviv's actions in Palestine, such as those related

to its illegal settlements or its brutal war on Gaza.

ELNET Israel CEO Emanuel Navon says parliamentary

delegations to Israel directly impact the level of support Tel

Aviv receives from Western countries.

In May 2024, he told supporters that ELNET had influenced the European

Parliament's resolution conditioning a Gaza ceasefire and

the release of Israeli hostages and the defeat of Hamas.

Now, this resolution would never have been

passed without the many years of work

done by ELNET, all those parliamentarians

that have literally turned them

around as pro-Israeli, as being pro-Israel after

visiting Israel.

So the question now is, besides Israel, who else is funding ELNET?

Unsurprisingly, tracking the money leads us back across

the Atlantic to

the US. ELNET's primary funding comes from private

donations,

often linked to anti-Muslim groups and prominent pro-Israel and

pro-Republican billionaires. For years, ELNET has copied the

modus operandi of the US's Israeli lobbies.

The group's US-based fundraising arm, called Friends of ELNET, or

FELNET, is led by former Israeli diplomat David

Siegel,

who also oversees a majority of ELNET's budget.

FELNET raised over $7 million in 2022,

a million more than in 2021. Other donors include Bernie

Marcus, the co-founder of Home Depot, and billionaire Larry Mizel,

as well as The Lisa and Michael Lefbell Foundation, linked to

billionaire investor Michael Lefbell.

Funding also comes in from American billionaires tied to various

trans-Atlantic

groups, promote Islamophobia, and finance illegal Israeli

settlements, such as Miriam Adelson and Nina

Rosenwald. Still, since ELNET's budgets and donors are only

partially disclosed and information about the exact

allocations of funds remains scarce, the influence of the

group's undisclosed contributions on European policy

making warrants further scrutiny.

ELNET's lobbying also extends into the tech, defense, and business sectors.

The lobby group uses its influence to secure lucrative trade deals with EU

countries. These deals promote the use of Israeli

defense and tech firms in

sectors like cybersecurity, AI, and agritech.

In 2017, ELNET successfully lobbied for the

continuation of the

European-Israeli Association Agreement, which is a legal

framework aimed at fostering political dialogue and economic

cooperation between Tel Aviv and the EU.

These efforts help Israeli companies access EU funding and markets.

So after peeling back a few layers of ELNET's

vast operations across Europe, we have to ask,

who's really benefiting more from this lobby group, Europe's citizens

or Israel?